Suppliers, retailers and restaurants that are members of the National Fisheries Institute’s (NFI) Better Seafood Board (BSB) can set themselves apart from the recent seafood-mislabeling investigations by the Boston Globe and Consumer Reports.
“There have been a number of media reports about DNA testing in the last five days that alleged fish fraud. For the past five years, rooting out fraud has been the focus of the Better Seafood Board,” said Lisa Weddig, BSB secretary.
NFI members originally formed the BSB as a way to distinguish NFI member companies as those not participating in the fraudulent activities such as species substitution and less than 100 percent net weight product, Weddig told SeafoodSource on Friday.
All NFI members have pledged to label species correctly and report weights accurately. Meanwhile, the BSB regularly reports suspected cases of fish fraud to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and has worked with federal and state weights-and-measures officials to crack down on illegal practices.
“We stand ready to work with restaurants and retailers who are interested in making sure the supply chain is free of fraud,” said Weddig. “If businesses want to ensure that they’re working with a reputable supplier, they can simply ask if the provider is a BSB member and, if they aren’t, they should ask ‘why not?.’”
“Gotcha” seafood species substitution stories like the one that ran in the Boston Globe are very popular, according to Weddig. “It seems that they typically run in cycles, as media outlets see the response and run similar investigations,” she said.
“News stories [usually] ... raise the awareness of one type of fraud — species substitution. They give retailers and foodservice operators the incentive to question whether or not their suppliers are members of the BSB,” added Weddig. “While more oversight by FDA and other government agencies will go a long way to stop fraudulent activities in the seafood industry, members of the supply chain can drive the change by not being a willing participant in fraud.”
Click here to read Gavin Gibbon’s blog on seafood fraud. Gibbons is NFI’s director of media relations.
Editor’s note: On Thursday, SeafoodSource hosted a webinar on DNA testing featuring ACGT’s Edward Diehl, LeeAnn Applewhite of Applied Food Technologies and Will Gergits of Therion International. A recording of the 90-minute webinar will soon be available on SeafoodSource; only premium members can access it.
